Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to information processing and, in particular, to managing acronyms and abbreviations used in the naming of physical database objects.
Description of the Related Art
Data modelers are sometimes provided with documentation of database objects or data structures in form of data dictionaries. The documentation often includes only the list of the names of the data objects. The names of the data objects can be of a quite technical nature or include abbreviations and acronyms. In many cases, this is a result of reverse engineering of the database instances to physical and logical models for databases of legacy systems that do not include data object descriptions. Another typical reason for missing definitions or labels is in the case of databases which were not created by following model driven or another database design and development methodology. In such cases, the technical names of the data objects are usually not accompanied by their definitions, descriptions or self-explanatory labels that would be easily understandable by a human.
The data object are usually data sets, data fields, columns or tables. The process of defining of the logical names and descriptions for these data objects from the acronyms used in their names is based on the experience and knowledge of the data modeler. This process is sometimes supported by the sample data received with the data documentation or database metadata.
Thus, there is a need for managing acronyms and abbreviations used in the naming of physical database objects.